


yellow and gold

by rosecake



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Memory Issues, Multi, not quite shipfic but it's getting there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22459942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/pseuds/rosecake
Summary: Carol discovers a way to get her memories back while sifting through the wreckage of an old, abandoned Skrull cruiser.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14
Collections: Writing Rainbow Yellow





	yellow and gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



> A/N: They call the memory probe Carol gets stuck in a Mind Frack in the director’s commentary, so that’s what I’ve gone with here.

Dust motes drifted slowly through the beam of Carol’s flashlight as she aimed it at the ship’s engine. She was trying to give Talos enough light to work by, but the twin engines were massive, each one bigger than a dropship, and her flashlight only did so much in the pitch black of a powerless engine room the size of a hangar. She wasn’t doing a very good job of aiming the light were he needed it if his muffled cursing was anything to go by.

Like she really needed a flashlight anyway. “Don’t turn around,” she said, letting her power rise up to the surface of her skin.

He turned around anyway, like an idiot, and then hissed and covered the face of his helmet with an arm as he jerked his face away from her.

Carol sighed. “Did you blind yourself? I told you not to look.”

“I didn’t blind myself,” he said, tilting his head and blinking rapidly as the room lit up. “Not totally. I just have a few white spots, that’s all. It’s still easier to see than with the flashlight.”

Working lights would have been better. She hated to admit it, but the design of Skrull ships still freaked her out a little, and the reflected light of her power gave the already disturbingly organic looking equipment a dull, unearthly glow. She was so used to the Kree cruiser they called home these days that she’d forgotten the style of it wasn’t any more native to the Skrulls than it was to her.

Talos stepped back, taking in a good a look at the engines as a whole now that the room was bright enough to see across, and then mumbled something disparaging under his breath as he wedged himself inside the engine casing. He disappeared, and she heard him rattling around inside for a minute before he slid back out.

“You can turn down the light show,” he said, not looking directly at her. “It’s starting to get warm in here.”

She let it die down to a light glow and then flicked the flashlight back on. “Well?” she asked. “Do you think you can the ship up and running again?”

Talos shrugged. Carol knew how badly he wanted to add a Skrull cruiser to their little fleet, even one as badly run down as the abandoned cruiser they’d found, if only they could get it space-worthy. But she could already tell by the tension in his shoulders that it wasn’t going to happen.

“Sure. If I had the right parts, and an engineering crew, and a ship dock that wouldn’t immediately sell us out to the Kree, then yeah, sure.”

“So that’s a no.” “Nope,” he said, kicking an abandoned hunk of scrap on the floor. “Not a chance in hell. I could figure something out if it were just the take-in rings,” he said, pointing towards a ridge above him, and Carol nodded along like she had any clue in hell what a Skrull cruiser engine was supposed to look like. “Just my luck, though, when they went the shrapnel got sucked inside the engine. It’s a scrap heap inside the casing.”

Carol gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Well, let’s see if there’s anything useful around before we leave.”

The engine rooms were nestled in the base of the ship, and from there they worked their way up through the body of the ship. Carol grabbed anything Talos said might be useful, but there wasn’t much. The ship had already been pretty thoroughly picked over, either by the crew that had abandoned it or by later scavengers.

Still, they weren’t leaving until they were sure they weren’t leaving anything useable behind. Carol walked along, trying to see if there was anything she recognized, but there wasn’t much that looked like anything to her. Kree intelligence had never had a very good understanding of Skrull technology. Too quick to destroy instead of capture.

So she was surprised when something finally did look familiar. “Talos,” she said. He was trailing behind her, occasionally poking through the debris littering the hallways, and when she called he stepped closer to look at what she was pointing at. “Is that what I think it is?”

Down at the end of the hallway was a machine she would swear was the same basic thing he’d used on her when they’d met. The screen was different - smaller, and there was only one, but she remembered the posts and the attachments around her head and ankles and hands.

“That is indeed a Mind Frack,” he said, walking past her. Her ran a hand over the control panel beneath the screen. “An old one, though.” He threw a switch, but nothing happened. Not surprising, given that nothing in the ship had power. It didn’t necessarily mean it was broken.

She had some memories. Seeing Maria, hearing Mar-vell on the tape, all of that had helped. But most of them were faded, or distant, or so disjointed she wasn’t even sure what they meant. Not very many of them, really, and none of them were as clear as the memories she’d seen in that machine.

“Do you think you could get that working again?”

He looked at her, and then back at the machine, silent for a second.  
“Well, I can try.”

-

“This is a terrible idea,” said Soren, frowning.

“We’ve had worse,” said Talos. He was on the ground, fiddling with the wiring, and couldn’t see Soren’s frown deepen.

“Come on,” said Carol, hoping to reassure her. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You could end up brain dead,” she said. She looked disappointed in Carol, like she’d expected more sense from her. “It’s ancient and it’s broken and it wasn’t designed for humans in the first place. Skrull physiology is pretty distinct from most other living things. It’s hard to predict the side-effects it might have.”

Dire warnings aside, Soren had been critical in piecing the machine back together. A low, electrical hum started as Talos finished what he was working on and stood up.

“Why build an interrogation device that only works one your own people?” asked Carol.

“It wasn’t designed for interrogation,” said Soren sharply, looking at Talos, who dropped his head and looked away. She looked back to Carol and continued in a softer tone. “Sometimes, with all the shifting, things in a person’s mind get - well, loose. The line between your own memories and the ones you’ve copied can blur.” She tapped her knuckles against the posts at the top of the machine. “The Mind Frack was developed by doctors, psychiatrists, to try and help patients sort things out.”

“And when civilization ended, we learned to use what we had in other ways,” said Talos.

Carol twisted the hem of her shirt in her fingers. “Well, it worked well enough the first time,” she said. “I’m ready to try it again.” Soren looked as if she might protest again, and then sighed and gestured for Carol to get into place. She slipped into the machine - upright this time, and Soren didn’t manacle her in just made sure her feet and hands were aligned in the correct position. Then she stood behind her, placed her hands gently on Carol’s shoulder, and said, “Close your eyes.”

Carol did as she was told.

“I’m going to be with you the whole time,” Soren said, her voice soft. “Okay?”

Carol exhaled, a deep, shuddering breath, suddenly nervous. But she wanted to know, so badly - being told what had happened wasn’t the same as _remembering_ it. Even heading the audio, seeing pictures, it wasn’t the same as the memory of having actually lived it.

“I’m ready,” she said.

She heard a click, and then there was a flush of warmth through her limbs. Something snapped against her temples, almost like a static shock. Not really painful, but sharp and unpleasant.

“I’m right here with you, Carol,” said Soren. “Right here.”

That was great, that was wonderful, but all of a sudden Carol wasn’t really sure where _here_ was supposed to be. The world shifted suddenly around her, and she felt like she was flying, and then she _was_ flying, no, not really flying, just in the simulator, and then she was just falling, and any second she was going to hit the ground and—

She remembered everything, all at once.

-

She woke up to the sound of her name. Talos and Soren both shouting for her at the same time, their voices echoing around each other and straight through Carol’s skull. She was awake, but she couldn’t remember falling asleep.

She remembered everything else, though, and a white hot ray of pain hits her between the eyes as her brain tries to play back every single second of her life at once. “Oh, god,” she said, trying to get up, and she would have collapsed if Soren hadn’t been there to help her out of the machine. She crouched down, head between her legs, and tried to focus on not falling over. It was tricky, even with Soren’s hands on her shoulders to steady her. “Fuck me.”

“Are you okay?” asked Talos, crouching down beside her as she keeled over. “Carol?”

“Fuck,” said Carol. She tried to look up at him, but her eyes were unfocused. Something was burning, she could smell smoke and burnt plastic, and there was a dark green shadow across the left side of Talos’s face. “Did I hit you?”

“No,” he said. “You hit the ceiling, and part of the ceiling fell on me, but I’m fine. And the ship is mostly fine.”

She looked back at the Mind Frack, and it definitely wasn’t fine. It was smoking and half collapsed. Hopefully she wouldn’t need it again.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She tried to stand and then gave up immediately. Soren’s hands slid forward through her hair, across her scalp until her cool fingers pressed soothingly against Carol’s temples. “I’m sorry, I— I’m not sure what happened.”

Talos pushed his face into hers, nudging her head upright in the process. “It’s okay,” he said, sighing lightly against her. “I’m okay. Are you okay, Carol?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think so, I think— I’m not sure—“

“Stop thinking,” said Soren gently. “The memories are there, the memories are going to stay there, you can go through them later, once your head is clear. Right now just close your eyes and try not think about anything at all.”

Carol closed her eyes and tried. To not think about her childhood, her high school graduation, her first kiss and boot camp and Maria and Monica’s birth and watching Mar-vell die and literally every single thing she has ever seen or heard of felt. She moaned, her head blazing, and for a second she thought she might lose control of herself again.

And then Soren pressed into her temples, softly, stroking her where the worst of the tension was. Talos shifted, the plane of his cheek pressing against hers, and she exhaled against him. And that made it easier, to just focus on Soren behind her and Talos in front of her, like nothing else needed her attention at the moment. Not the burning smell of the broken machine of the sight of the sparks still bursting behind her eyelids. Just the feel of them, pressed close and comforting around her. 

“I’m fine,” she said after a moment. She opened her eyes, and the light hurt, but only for a second before it faded. In a few seconds she’d be able to stand, she was sure of it. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m fine now.”

The hard part of it was over.


End file.
